After that, Robert ventured into the field of share market and business, which was an objectionable profession in his family in the past. Bob Zellner was one of their important contacts who would greatly influence this strategy. Yet he was not following the trope of the white savior; a charge directly addressed, and discounted, in the film, as well as in Zellners 2008 autobiography, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement, co-written with movement scribe Constance Curry. It's like, yeah-. He was convicted and served time on the Georgia chain gang. Activist Dorothy "Dottie" Miller (Zellner), who lost her shoes to high-pressure hoses after being clubbed during a demonstration in Danville, Virginia, gives an affidavit to James Forman, SNCC executive secretary. Wow. He is a graduate of Denmark High School, Class of 1980. . A Comprehensive Document on Grass Roots Organizing Work (GROW), [1966], crmvet.org crmvet.org, Highlander, SSOC, and Organizing in the White Community: We Knew That We Were Not Free. Because they were instructed to prioritize urban areas like Atlanta, they relied on developing regional contacts to build their organization in the countryside. He was not just white, but from Alabama, and his father and grandfather had been members of the Ku Klux Klan. His father, James Zellner, eventually left for Europe to support Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe during World War II, and when he returned, he left the KKK behind. Prominent Civil Rights Activist, Freedom Rider and Author of The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement. Rencontre avec un homme de convictions. He suffered brain damage and post traumatic stress from the physical abuse inflicted upon him. It was at these meetings that Zellner met SNCC members for the first time. (2008) edited by Constance Curry and forward by Julian Bond. How was it watching your hanging play out on camera? Scoop a tad of hair pomade, run your palms with it and apply the product to your locks. Combined Destinies: Whites Sharing Grief about Racism. "Dorothy Miller Zellner." How could you not get involved with that? While in Russia, [] They Have Listed Their Wheaton Mansion for Sale In December 2019, Chicago Tribune reported that Robert Zellner and Kathleen Zellner have listed their 7,396-square-foot Wheaton mansion for $2.1 million. He brings to life heartbreaks as well as victories of the Civil Rights Era in a way that empowers and instructs the modern-day movement. It reminded me of Nazi Germany. This campus activism caused Anne Braden to contact him. That may lead to a TV series, Zellner said. Bob Zellner's career as a civil rights activist, beginning in 1955 as a Murphy High School student, spans nearly seven decades. Lucas Till stars in "Son of the South," playing Bob Zellner, a fledgling civil rights activist from Alabama. She is presently identified as Anne Zellner Sherwood and lives in Denver, Colorado. Son of the South will be available in select Theaters, On VOD & Digital February 5, 2021. http://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/bob-zellner/, Moral Heroes website, www.moralheroes.org. They had books and the mom was throwing the books in the fire. I liked him because he was the perfect good ole white boy, a teetotal white country boy, with the accent and the background of the real rural South. He was born in Oshkosh on May 2, 1960 the son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner. It's not the Pacific Ocean. When he and his wife Dorothy "Dottie" Zellner presented the proposal for a " GROW " ( Grassroots Organizing Work) project, it was turned down. The attack would lead Zellner, then a student at nearby Huntingdon College with an emerging interest in the Black freedom struggle, from an observer to a movement participant. In real life, the two were inseparable, enduring repeated beatings, arrests and jailings. Providing historical perspective, Bob has been a Guest Lecturer for Common Power. He also Investigated the murders of three civil rights workers with Rita Schwerner. He and the other members of the Equity Project Alliance believe it's important to remind everyone that the fight hasn't ended and we need to look at equity and inclusion and continue to understand how these systems are still very serious remnants of our dark past. Dr. Bob Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 and raised in south Alabama, the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. Louise Palmer Zellner, 93, formerly of Emmaus Ave., Allentown, and Hellertown, passed away Thursday, February 23, 2023. We had to go to Tuskegee." . Voter registration worker Herbert Lee had just been killed by Mississippi Rep. E. H. Hurst. He grew up in rural Alabama, the son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members and ministers. He was an English major for a while. Son of the South was written, directed, and edited by Barry Alexander Brown, executive producer Spike Lee, distributed by Vertical Entertainment. Soon after, he was appointed one of the first field secretaries and certainly the first Southern white one of the nascent SNCC. we loved all of that. That made him a special target for the mob that greeted young Black protesters. (1961-1967). Like other activists imbued in Marxism, Zellner used a materialist approach when organizing reforming Klansmen, focusing on concrete advantages of black-white unity rather than appealing to Christian brotherhood. 351 pages. piggly wiggly moss point . Bob Zellner graduated from Murphy High School (Alabama)|Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama in 1957. Carol Ann thinks that Rosa Parks and the Durrs were overstepping trying to recruit them into the civil rights movement, but Zellner flashes back (within the flashback) to a time where he was pressured to brutalize some Black folks. John Robert "Bob" Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 in Jay, Florida. Bob and his wife Dottie joined SCEF, the Southern Conference Educational Fund, to . The opening credits reveal a languid montage of beautiful images of the South set to music that reminded me of that TV series with Carrol OConnor (Archie Bunker from All in the Family) from the 80s In the Heat of the Night. (1967-1980). Maybe because it concentrates on a personal journey and an authentic Alabama one, its free from the stilted, hold-your-hand language of offerings such as Ava DuVernays Selma, in which Martin Luther King is told John Lewis from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is here to see you, with Kings aides pronouncing each syllable in a slow staccato as opposed to a quick Snick that they more likely would have said, and which mainstream audiences wouldnt have likely understood. It was a hellish scene. He received his PhD at the age of 24 years. * This specific fee falls within this range. 1. He ran as a Democrat in District #1 (heavily GOP) for New York State Senate. Those with a casual knowledge of the movement may be misled by the stereotypes of names and geographies to assume that Zellner is the Northern Jew and McDew a Black Southerner. After that, there was not a lot of question with the early SNCC people about my commitment, but I also realized that white privilege, would lead me go back to being white at any time that I wanted to, had I chose to do so, but I made a commitment that I wouldn't, so I tried to live up to that. I mean, it is the devil you know? His story is coming to Pensacola. His continued active role in the movementnotably as one of 16 arrested with Rev. Anything you want to leave the audience with? They also help organize volunteers to visit swing states during the election to register voters. All of us SNCC was in that one briefcase. There's absolutely no doubt about it. Please email us at [emailprotected], subject line republish, with any questions or to let us know what stories youre picking up. By Julia Cheng. Troopers attacked Dr. Zellner and members of the tribe who were protecting ancestral burial grounds from developer's bulldozers. They had busted all the cameras. Bob Zellner. From 2005 to the present Bob has traveled with the Faith & Politics Congressional Tours, as a featured speaker. Zellner worked as a nurse for several years before joining the Center for Constitutional Rights in 1984. At heart, Son of the South is a coming-of-age story with the Civil Rights Movement as a backdrop. I had been banned from campus for 40 years, not allowed to come back. But did you feel like it was hard gaining SNCCs trust? After witnessing a white activist brutally beaten by police, Zeller decided to join the movement "to get my own freedom," he says. At the screening, Brown explained his goal was to make as authentic an Alabama film as possible; a feat harrowingly achieved in the bus station scene shot at the actual site of the attack. Bob Zellner, Winter 1963-1964, Danny Lyon, Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement 18, dektol.wordpress.com. Up until 1967, Zellner worked with Ms. Ella Baker, Rev. He said that little land that he left me doesn't mean anything. In 2014, Zellner was featured in TIME Magazine as one of 17 "living legends" of the Civil Rights Movement to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Zellner himself became a candidate in 1998 while teaching Civil Rights History at LIU in eastern Long Island. Julian Bond, now the National NAACP Chairman and Bob organized the National Civil Rights Coordinating Committee. (Viewed on March 2, 2023) . Sometimes when we retell the stories, we actually soft pedal the amount of violence that there was. Over 50 years later, Mr. Zellner and his wife Dottie (who met and married working for SNCC) are still activists/organizers working with the North Carolina Forward Together Moral Movement and Rev. First time I went back to Huntingdon College campus, I was arrested. Robert is married to Kathleen Zellner, a well-known attorney known for representing murder convicts Steven Avery and Larry Eyler. After two years on the SNCC staff as a field secretary for campus traveling, Bob enrolled to study Sociology as a MA and Ph.D. candidate, Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts between 1963-1965. Bob Zellner, an Alabama-born and raised son and grandson of Ku Klux Klan members, was a student when the Freedom Riders came through his college town in Alabama in 1960. Zellner also campaigned for social justice in Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia. If we had shown arms and openly been prepared to fight with arms, we would have been wiped out. Kathleen had met Robert for the first time in Missouri. Zellner was charged with everything from criminal anarchy in Baton Rouge to "inciting the black population to acts of war and violence against the white population" in Danville, VA. From 1963 to 1965, Zellner studied race relations in the Graduate School of Sociology at Brandeis University. Was it you guys are just at the church, "Well, we're not really, we're just here to write a paper and I'm not getting involved with anything.". Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site. His father was a doctor and had absolutely no interest in share trading or speculating, in spite of the fact that Robert's grandfather was a speculator. "SNCC was our life. Administration. Two of those passengers, Catherine Burks-Brooks and Bernard Lafayette, along with later Freedom Rider Earnest Rip Patton, were aboard a replica bus arriving at the exact moment 10:23 a.m. that they had 60 years earlier. Top 3 Results for Linda Miller Zellner. We did it 50 years ago. Zellners first job out of college was to be Counselor and staff at Highlander Research and Education Center|Highlander Folk School located in Monteagle, Tennessee for the summer of 1961. This page was last edited on 16 May 2021, at 02:30. Dorothy Miller Zellner John Robert Zellner (born April 5, 1939) is an American civil rights activist. It's really virulent here in the South, and it's easy to revert to that. One was non-violence as a way of life, and the other Everybody in SNCC agreed in the earliest SNCC, that we would all be non-violent in terms of our public demonstrations and so forth. Bob and his wife Dottie joined SCEF, the Southern Conference Educational Fund to organize an anti-racism project for black . The first white Southerner to serve as a Field Secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he worked with historical figures including John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, and Anne Braden. Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the Black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern "way of life." . (1961-1967). Though threatened with expulsion for his involvement with student protests, Zellner graduated in 1961 with a degree in psychology and sociology. How scary was that? The first week he entered the office in Atlanta, SNCCs then executive director, Ed King, told him to answer the phone and left to return to school. Dr. William J. Barber II, the NAACP, voting rights groups, and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. And Daddy said, he even put me back in the will. As a new generation asks, What is my place in this struggle? Zellners work points to new answers. Robert J Zellner, age 62, of Oshkosh, passed away at his home on Tuesday June 21, 2022. For those wondering how to fight for equality, combat prejudice, and move past polarized politics, his work across racial and political lines is crucial, and his inspiring stories have lessons and examples. I didn't know the extent to which I would and the lifelong involvement, but I knew that I was destined to do that. Born in Alabama in 1939, Bob Zellner has spent the better part of his nearly 82 years in and around the Alabama Gulf Coast. In Son of the South, out on February 5, Lucas Till plays real-life civil rights activist Bob Zellner. And I said, "they're going to kill you in Mississippi." It was painful. Zellner witnessed the beatings, leading him to become a full-time Civil Rights worker. A SNCC member and field secretary, he attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery. While focusing on breaking the hold of George Wallace and the KKK on poor and working-class white people across the south, Bob Zellner debated George Wallace at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts when Wallace ran for president in 1968. The program is being organized by The Equity Project Alliance. It's a coming of age movie about a white southerner involved in the Civil Rights Movement and making the decisions, how incrementally you become committed. Zellner is partnered with his wife, Pamela Smith, to stay in front of what he calls a new era for civil rights. Dr. Bob Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 and raised in south Alabama, the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. Later that week, Zellner views a news report that John Lewis and the Freedom Riders are coming to Alabama and rushes back to the Durrs house to warn them not to come protest, and the story takes flight. "Bob, you can't study the racial problem forever," he recalls her saying. I said, "When are you coming back?" An Evening with Bob Zellner: Civil Rights Activist is being held at Gateway Church of Christ on Feb. 25 and will feature a look at the movie based on his life, Son of the South." TV Shows. That's a positive thing, because as long as it's hidden, we're not dealing with it, but now it's so open, that we have no choice but to deal with it. As the son of an Alabama Klansman, he was attracted to political activism through studying civil rights, meeting Dr. King, and becoming aware of the entrenched racism in his community and in the South. Dr. Bob Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 and raised in south Alabama, the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. Robert is married to Kathleen Zellner, a well-known attorney known for representing murder convicts Steven Avery and Larry Eyler. Hence, he suggested that being a lawyer would be an appropriate choice of career for her. She was later transferred to the 'University of Missouri.' 3. Movies. The following information is provided for citations. He obviously started making notes, at least mental notes. Civil rights activist Robert Zellner tells Gianna about growing up in Montgomery, Alabama during the Civil Rights movement shortly after the premiere of "Son of The South," based on Zellner's autobiography, "The Wrong Side of Murder Creek." The grandson of a Klansmen, Zellner talks about how & why his father chose family disownment and left the Klu Klux Klan. Zellner also Campaigned against David Duke in Louisiana when the former Klansman ran for governor claiming that he was no longer a racist. It's just a very strong, terrible disease that people can't get over. Zellner and four other students (later known as the Huntingdon Five) outraged school authorities, however, when they began attending civil rights meetings with Black students from what was then Alabama State College for Negroes. And he said, "Oh no, when we're able to, we get back on the bus." We've been working on it for a long time. While teaching in the Hamptons, Bob worked with the Shinnecock Nation on a campaign to stop the bulldozing of ancestral burial grounds for an upscale housing sub-division in Southampton, New York. By the time we reached the bus station down here, the mob had already really massacred the press. William Barbers Poor Peoples Campaign. But they would be mistaken. Listening to Bob Zellner speaking about organizing working class and poor white people. Some of Wikitia's pages are sourced from Wikipedia.org's Mainspace and Draftspace. However, he still planned to move to Vietnam. More than once, Zellner was beaten into unconsciousness. Zellner brings his girlfriend Carol Ann (Lucy Hale) along. There were two wings in SNCC. Bob was an organizer of the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the first white southerner to serve as Field Secretary for the . [Revolution in the Air Max Elbaum page 200], Deep South Education and Research Associates, Building Revolution in the South: The Southern Conference Educational Fund and the New Communist Movement, 1968-1981 A Senior Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the Department of History In Candidacy for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in History, https://keywiki.org/index.php?title=Bob_Zellner&oldid=512831, GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later. Young white and free with the world ahead of him, just as soon as he finishes his final group paper on race relations. As of 2014, she is involved in advocacy work on behalf of Palestinians. it's okay, but you know M.O. The street was covered with blood and broken glass. Talk to me a little bit about the riot and, we're just blocks away from where that happened. I had met church people strong in faith, but until then I had never seen such a dedicated soldiers, he remembered. As the grandson of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) member and son of an . UPTO 50% OFF ON ALL PRODUCTS. (2013). The first week he entered the office in Atlanta, SNCCs then executive director, Ed King, told him to answer the phone and left to return to school. He's incredible. His race proved to be useful for SNCC as he forged connections with powerful whites in rural communities that were sympathetic to their organizing. The actors did the best they could with a mediocre script. It's the first time I think anybody has made a film about a young civil rights organizer, especially a white Southern organizer, deciding to go against all of our raising in the South and to take part in one of the most historical movements of right time. Witnessing History: Former SNCC field secretary Bob Zellner stands next to a poster of Son of the South, a film about his work in the Civil Rights Movement, at a screening in Montgomery, Alabama. He organized sit-ins, rallies, investigations and speeches from Missouri to Massachusetts. Zellner also participated in SNCCs McComb voter registration campaign and in the Pike County Nonviolent Movement before moving to Leflore County to work with Amzie Moore and the McGhee family on desegregation, voter registration, and the formation of the Leflore County Freedom Democratic Party. In 2005, Bob Zellner was a featured Civil Rights Luminary in the award winning documentary "Come Walk in My Shoes". A veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, she served as a recruiter for the Freedom Summer project and was co-editor of Student Voice, the student newsletter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. As co-editor of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's newsletter, the Student Voice, Dorothy Miller Zellner helped craft the organization's message and report on stories suppressed by the mainstream media.Zellner was arrested at a CORE demonstration in Miami in 1960 and participated in sit-ins in New Orleans before joining Julian Bond as co-editor of the Student Voice, which . Zellners lectures are filled with death-defying and often humorous accounts from these critical moments in history. There is so much nuanced relevance to Mr. Zellners life story and his role in the civil rights movement, but sadly Son of the South uses broad easy strokes to attempt to tell a complex American story. He suffered brain damage and post traumatic stress from the physical abuse inflicted upon him. Bob Zellner was born on April 5, 1939 and raised in south Alabama, the second of five boys born to Methodist minister James Abraham Zellner and school teacher Ruby Hardy Zellner. Bob Zellner est le hros d' Un fils du Sud , de Barry Alexander Brown. He was born in Oshkosh on May 2, 1960 the son of the late Raymond and Virginia Miley Zellner. Fee Range $20,001 - $30,000 *. SNCC Field Secretary Arrested for Vagrancy While Walking on Campus in Montgomery, Alabama, January 9, [1963], crmvet.org crmvet.org, Click Here to View Document His father, James Zellner, was a Methodist minister and a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, a group to which his grandfather had also belonged. That's was very hard to see. A senior paper.. Robert grew up as a well-learned person and studied a lot of subjects, such as medicine and art. In one of her interviews, Kathleen mentioned that she had binge-watched the 2015 'Netflix' series 'Making a Murderer' with Robert on their home theater and was intrigued. Offering a unique perspective as a white woman in a black-led organization, she sheds light on the dynamics of race and gender in the Civil Rights Movement. His race proved to be useful for SNCC as he forged connections with powerful whites in rural communities that were sympathetic to their organizing. Zellner decides he and his friends need to actually go and attend service at the Black church where Rev. Founded by Congressman John Lewis and Methodist minister Rev.